Border Checks Summer 2011

Debate between Jane Ellison and Paul Goggins

Wednesday 9th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Paul Goggins]

No longer in her place. She will know from the exchanges that she and I have had both inside and outside the Chamber in the 18 months that she has held office that my starting point, as a former Home Office Minister and Northern Ireland security Minister, has been to trust the Home Secretary, as, indeed, I trusted all her predecessors. We heard on Monday from my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett), who described the job as the “ministerial graveyard”. We heard my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) talk earlier this afternoon about the serious responsibilities that the job has for public safety and our borders. It is my strong belief that we should not seek to second-guess difficult decisions that Home Secretaries have to take, often with advice, of course, that the rest of us do not have.

Having said that, in the interests of protecting her own reputation and, crucially, that of her office, the Home Secretary needs urgently to clarify a number of issues. I have three specific questions. She and the Minister will remember from my question on her statement on Monday that Manchester airport is in my constituency. Indeed, when I asked her whether the pilot included that airport, she gave me three answers for the price of one: “No”, “Yes” and “Maybe”. Well, I need to know whether the pilot did in fact operate at Manchester airport, and if so how frequently checks were relaxed and how many people passed through the airport without biometric checks. I appreciate that the Minister replying today will have many other things to respond to, so a letter on those issues and questions would be very welcome.

My second question, which has not been discussed as extensively as it needs to be, is where did the pressure for this pilot come from? I find it difficult to believe that all the pressure came from within the UK Border Agency. After all, procedures were in place for health and safety and public order emergencies, and Brodie Clark himself has confirmed that, even this summer, when the pilot was operating and there were three-hour queues at Heathrow airport, checks were still not relaxed.

However, delays at airports damage the reputation of airports themselves and of airlines. I would therefore like the Minister to tell us whether any pressure has been applied, either on the Home Secretary or the Transport Secretary, by BAA or other airport operators—or indeed by any airline companies—to speed up passport control. Has there been any correspondence with the Home Secretary and the Transport Secretary on that, or any meetings or discussions with Ministers? If there has, we should have copies of those letters and minutes.

My third question goes to the very heart of how Ministers operate within this Government. How hands-on were the Home Secretary and her Ministers in establishing, monitoring and evaluating this pilot? The right hon. Lady must have been aware of the political risk she was taking in establishing the pilot. She must have been aware that the public would take some convincing that a more effective and targeted approach would include the relaxation of biometric checks. If she wants now to convince us that she is on top of the situation and has been throughout, she needs to publish all the submissions and all the other documents that relate to the pilot, including the information that was gathered during the pilot.

[Jane Ellison (Battersea) (Con)]

The right hon. Gentleman spoke about the public reaction, but would he not admit that one of the things that we most commonly hear from members of the public is about using intelligence-led checks at our borders? Everyone I speak to—lots of constituents—constantly asks why we do not use a more intelligence-led approach, rather than frisking schoolchildren and so on. The right hon. Gentleman is wrong. The public would have every sympathy with an intelligence-led approach.

[Paul Goggins]

Of course the public want an intelligence-led approach, but the idea that that includes disregarding the biometric content of any passport is preposterous. I hope the hon. Lady accepts that.

To return to my point, surely Ministers were receiving weekly updates on the pilot. Surely they were convening regular stocktakes in relation to what is, after all, a highly controversial pilot. I would be particularly interested to hear from the Minister how many times decisions to implement measures beyond the routine procedures that were allowed within the pilot were escalated to the border force duty director, in line with the instructions to which we heard reference earlier.

There was some speculation on the radio this morning that in the end both Mr Clark and the Home Secretary will be proved right. I believe that that would be the worst of all outcomes. It would show a complete disconnection between policy and operations, with claims that officials were over-interpreting what Ministers had approved, and Ministers so hands-off that they simply blame officials when things go wrong. I find it astonishing that the first the Home Secretary knew about the issue was when she was informed by the permanent secretary that disciplinary action had been instigated against Brodie Clark. If she had taken even a basic interest in the pilot, she would have known well before that that something had gone wrong. For the sake of her reputation, but more particularly for the reputation of her office, she should be as open as possible and publish all the documents that she has.